. . . that Minnesota had concluded to be solid
for Blain, “getting into the band wagon.”Sabin delivered it well, and his “getting into the band wagon” was very
generally listened to, which is saying a good deal in a convention where scarcely
anything was heard but yells and cat calls.

St. Paul (Minnesota) Daily
Globe, June 9, 1884, page 4, column 7.

The Daily Globe’s report of Sabin’s speech is the earliest known
appearance of the idiom, “get into the band wagon,” in print (“jump into the
band wagon” appeared by 1888).In light
of the special reporting of the phrase, and the attention the phrase is said to
have received at the convention, it seems possible, if not likely, that Dwight
M. Sabin (or his speechwriter) coined the idiom.Even if he did not coin the idiom, his
inclusion of the idiom in a speech before a national audience of power-brokers,
businessmen and journalists may well have been the catalyst necessary for the
idiom to gain wider acceptance and use.

The Saturday Evening Post, October 6, 1906

The Idiom

The word “bandwagon,” originally
a wagon that carried a band, is now used to refer to any, “activity, group,
movement, etc. that has become successful or fashionable and so attracts many
new people: a bandwagon effect.”[i]The related idiom, to “jump on the
bandwagon,” means “to join an activity that has become very popular or to
change your opinion to one that has become very popular so that you can share
in its success.”[ii]Both expressions are based on the use of
bandwagons as a mode of advertising, frequently for circuses or
politicians.

“Bandwagon” (or band wagon) is
often dated to 1855, when it appeared in P. T. Barnum’s autobiography.[iii]The idiom, “to jump on the bandwagon,” is
often dated to an 1899 letter written by Theodore Roosevelt.[iv]But both the word and the expression are
decades older than generally believed.Senator Sabin’s speech, at the Republican National Convention of 1884,
shows that the idiom is older.Earlier
newspaper accounts of political campaigns and circus parades demonstrate that
the word is much older yet.

The Kansas Herald of Freedom, May 22, 1858, page 3.

Band Wagons

Bandwagons were used in political
campaigns long before the idiom, “jump into the bandwagon,” was first
coined.The “bandwagon effect,” although
not referred to by that name, was already on full display in 1855, the same
year in which P. T. Barnum published his autobiography:

[A]s your Know-Nothing neighbor
says: “Sam geared up his band wagon, told his boys to get their whistles and
come along – catch up some fellow to make a speech, and all would be
right.”The wagon was “geared up,” and
as a writer in the Age says: while
Mr. Johnston was speaking, the band came along playing a lively air, and took
most of his hearers up street to listen to the music and a Know-Nothing speech
from a Welshman. . . .

The use of bandwagons for
political purposes was not new in 1855.“Band wagons,” themselves, were also not new.A circus history time line, provided by The
Circus In America, 1793 – 1940, dates the first us of circus wagons to
1835.Presumably, circus wagons with
performing bands onboard were used shortly, if not immediately,
thereafter.

The earliest use of “band wagon,” that I could
find dates from just a few years later, in 1842.Interestingly, however, it appeared in a
reference to a political rally, not a circus bandwagon:

We feel no disposition to crow
over the unfortunate, but we tell the whig leaders, with their four band
wagons, their foreign silk flags, and their Giraffes[v]
that the days of humbuggery have gone by.

It is not clear from the context
whether the term, “band wagon,” was already a standard, idiomatic expression or
merely one of several ways to describe a large conveyance carrying a band.But an item on the same page of the same
paper might suggest that the expression, “band wagon,” was not yet
standard.An advertisement for S. H.
Nichols’ “unequalled troop of Equestrians and Splendid Dramatic Performances,”
describes what sounds like a circus parade with a band and circus wagons, but
does not use the expression “band wagon”:

A superior Band is attached to
this company, and on entering each city or village will head the numerous train
of twenty-one new and elegant carriages of the most costly description . . . .

Two years later, an account of
more bands on more wagons in a political rally also avoids the term, “band
wagon”:

Second Whig State Convention in Ohio.

Correspondence of The Tribune.
Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 22, 1844.

. . . [E]very road leading to
our city was thronged with stages, wagons and horses, many of them carrying
bands of music with banners flying . . . .

New York Daily Tribune, February 28, 1844, page 2, column 3.

But in 1848, the expression “band
wagon” appears in association with both political campaigns and circuses:

Locofoco
Pole Raising.

. . . The Circleville
delegation was the last, but not the least; it consisted of one band wagon
drawn by four horses, one two-horse wagon, and two or three other vehicles.The band wagon contained six little children,
one man with a five and one boy with a drum! That’s all.

A string of half a dozen Elks
went through town a day or two ago.We
understand they belong to the Messrs Mabie, and are to be trained this winter
for the purpose of drawing the band wagon of the Circus establishment owned by
these gentlemen.Beloit, Wis. Journal,
23d ult.

Vermont Phoenix, Brattleboro, Vermont, December 22, 1848, page 1.

The popularity of band wagons
seems to have led to technological advances in bandwagon technology.In 1852, “a large band wagon on a new
principle, by John B. Young,” was singled out for “approbation” at the Northumberland
County Agricultural Fair in Pennsylvania.[vi]

During the following decades, the
word “band wagon” is used with increasing frequency with reference to circuses,
political rallies, and military and civic bands.Band wagons were also available for rent; a
sort of mobile, attention-getting billboard:

That
Band Wagon. Los
Angeles, April 3, 1888.

Editors Herald: - Mr. Collins
has informed the City Council that he has heard of several severe accidents
having occurred by reason of the parade of the “advertising band wagon.” . . .
Mr. Collins cannot prove that anybody has been killed or hurt by reason of the
parading band wagon.

Get Into the Band Wagon

In 1884, after more than four
decades of use in political campaigns, “band wagon” jumped on the idiom
bandwagon, to become a figurative, idiomatic expression that would remain a
fixture in the language.The first
reported use of the expression, “get into the band wagon,” was in Dwight M. Sabin’s
speech before the 1884 Republican National Convention.The specific, repeated reference to the
phrase, the comment that Sabin “delivered it well,” and the observation that
the expression was “very generally listened to” in an otherwise noisy and chaotic
convention, all suggest that Sabin’s turn of phrase was something new at the
time.It seems plausible, if not likely,
that Senator Sabin (or his speechwriter) coined the expression for the
occasion.

But whether Sabin coined the
expression or not, the expression seems to have remained, largely, a regional
idiom for several years; centered in the Upper Midwest, in and around Senator
Sabin’s home state of Minnesota and in the Dakota Territory.Through the end of the 1880s, most of the
various metaphorical uses of “band wagon” that I could find in print are from
or relate to events in the Upper Midwest, particularly in association with the
Dakota Territory statehood debates (one Dakota or two):

It was at first proposed to
have [the meeting of the Democratic club of New Ulm] private . . ., but as soon
as this was announced there was a strong protest.There are a good many who are anxious to be
in the procession just now, and they want to get into the band wagon too.

New Ulm (Minnesota) Review,
February 25, 1885;

And the fact is, Kansas leads
the procession – band wagon and all.

Phillipsburg (Kansas) Herald,
June 13, 1885;

Mr. Keith is one of the most
aggressive and creditable citizens of South Dakota, and will be found on the
lead horse when the band wagon turns the corner.

New York Tribune, May 6, 1888
(quoting an article from the Chicago Mail);

When Dakota sees clearly which
way the wind blows, she will jump on the band-wagon and blow her full quota of
instruments.She will try to get on the
wagon in time to get good seats, and you may depend upon it, Dakota will try to
be in the front rank for the winning candidate.Dakota is for division and admission first, last and all the time.

New York Tribune (quoting Colonel W. C. Plummer, of the Dakota
delegation), June 21, 1888;

New York and Vermont were the
only states and Dakota the only territory that began voting solid for Harrison
on the first ballot of the last day.On
the second ballot New Hampshire came into line and on the third of the last
day, or eighth of the session, there was a general scramble to get on the band
wagon where Dakota had so early in the day secured a comfortable seat.

Bismarck (Dakota Territory)
Weekly Tribune, June 29, 1888;

Get on the Band Wagon

St. Paul Daily Globe, July 28, 1888;

. . . one of the last to climb
into the band wagon was Waldo M. Potter . . .

The fact of the matter is that
Stutsman county got into the band wagon before the race commenced and remained
there and played one of the instruments when the combination went under the
wire a winner.

The rustling qualifications of
Bob Wallace were displayed every day during the convention.He is one of the best and quickest band wagon
organizers in the territory.

Jamestown (Dakota Territory) Weekly
Alert, August 30, 1888;

Mr. Lampman saw the “fish
a-making for his boat,” so he crawled out of the Republican wetness into the
Democratic band wagon and escaped the “fish” by the dry land route.

St. Paul Daily Globe, November 17, 1888, page 10, column 7.

I find it interesting that most of the metaphorical uses of “band wagon” in the 1880s were expressed in a positive sense, as opposed to the modern, generally negative
sense.Although an early, literal
illustration of the bandwagon effect from 1855 (in which one candidate’s
audience was seduced away by a bandwagon) was expressed negatively, most of the
early metaphorical jumping, getting into or climbing onto “band wagons” was
generally portrayed as a good thing.Of
course, whether getting behind a particular candidate or cause is a good thing
depends on which side you support, many, if not most, of the early use of the
idiom appears to have been expressed in a positive sense, by people who
supported or encouraged the particular “band wagon” at issue.

In modern usage, “bandwagon” is
mostly used in a negative sense, to express disappointment that someone
switched sides or supports an issue, team or person based merely on the
perceived success of that issue, team or person; not based on heartfelt or
sincerely held beliefs or feelings.One
of the last metaphorical uses of “band wagon” in the 1880s is an early example
of the modern, negative sence of the idiom:

The seventeen Southern
Republican congressmen are reported united ready to jump on the band wagon in
the speaker contest, as the Dakota figure is.They have a good deal of the old carpet bag instinct, and are always
ready to jump to the side they think has the fat things.They want the taxes taken off the necessaries
of life, such as tobacco and whisky, and put on sugar and the other
luxuries.They take their drinks without
sugar.

St. Paul Daily Globe, November 29, 1889, page 4, column 3.

In the 1890s, the expression
became much more widespread, in the positive and negative sense, appearing in
newspapers from New York[vii]
and Washington DC[viii]
to Hawaii.[ix]

In the mid-1890s, the idiom, to get on the "bandwagon" formed the basie of another still-familiar idiom, to get on/or fall off the "wagon." The original form of the idom was, to get on the "water-wagon;" apparently an allusion to water-wagons, temperance wagons, the temperance movement and its metaphoric "bandwagon."

Other Theories

The demonstrated early use of the
word “band wagon” and the idiom, “get on/jump on the band wagon,” demonstrate
that the word and idiom are much older than previously thought.The word predates P. T. Barnum’s 1855
autobiography by nearly fifteen years and the idiom predates Theodore
Roosevelt’s 1899 letter by about fifteen years.There are, however, at least two further suggestions about the origin of
the idiom that deserve mention.

Puck Magazine

William Safire’s Political Dictionary (Oxford University
Press, 2008, page 42) states that, “[t]he humor magazine Puck in 1884 depicted
Chester Arthur driving a bandwagon carrying other presidential hopefuls . . .
.”He does not give a specific citation
with date or issue number for the purported depiction of a bandwagon.If such an image actually exists, and it had
been published after the Republican National Convention, the image might be an
early, visual representation of the metaphor uttered by Senator Sabin at the
Republican National Convention.If such
an image exists, and it appeared before the convention, it could have been the
inspiration for Senator Sabin’s early use of the phrase.

I am not convinced that such an
image exists, at least not in the pages of Puck
magazine in 1884.I have personally
looked at every page of Puck from
that year (or at least every page available to me online, which appeared to be
every page of every issue for that year), and I did not see any cartoon,
engraving, image, description or depiction of Chester A. Arthur in a
bandwagon.If anyone finds such an image
in Puck, or any other magazine,
please leave a comment with a citation or link to the image.

In any case, such an image, even
if published before the convention, would not necessarily be metaphoric;
bandwagons had been used in politics for more than forty years, and an image of
a political bandwagon might be nothing more than a depiction of a literal
bandwagon.The metaphoric use seems to
have started with, or at least come to public notice, Senator Sabin’s speech.

Puck, volume 16, number 395, October 1, 1884, pages 72-73

Puck 1884 - a Sleigh

Although there did not appear to
be any bandwagons in Puck in 1884,
there were several images of politicians in/on/or near various wagons, none of
them bandwagons.Only one of those
cartoons depicted a band – a one-man band, not a bandwagon.The drawing depicts a one-man band, with
bells, a barrel organ, bellows, tuba, cannon and a bass drum, marching in front a wagon
driven by James G. Blaine.The wagon is
loaded with cash for buying votes and a box of campaign lies and scandals.A number of presumably recognizable
personalities are pulling and pushing the wagon.The wagon does not have the shape or look
generally associated with bandwagons; it appears to be merely a workman’s cart
for hauling stuff.The other wagon-like
political cartoons that appeared in Puck
in 1884 do not show a band of any kind, and do not show a bandwagon.The cartoons depict a sleigh,[x]
a carriage,[xi] a
prison wagon[xii],
and a cabriolet;[xiii]
but no bandwagon.

Puck 1884 - a Carriage

Absent the discovery of the image
described in Safire’s Political
Dictionary, I am inclined to believe that Sabin’s speech is probably the
first metaphoric use of the expression, “get into the band wagon,” or at least
the first such use a national stage.That speech, made before a collection of movers, shakers, businessmen
and reporters from across the country, would have introduced the idiom to a
national audience.The regional
character of the idiom for several years after the convention also suggests
that the idiom did not originate in the pages of Puck, or any other national
magazine.The idiom was most popular in
the early years in an around Senator Sabin’s home state of Minnesota.

His soap, one of the first
nationally advertised products, was sold from brightly colored street cars
(with musicians), which led to the phrase "get on the bandwagon.”

Ginny M.,
biographical sketch of Benjamin T. Babbitt, Findagrave.com.

Babbitt is
believed to have been one of the first people to use bandwagons for commercial
advertising:

1871

. . . National Association of
Ballplayers organized (forerunner of National League).

Benjamin T. Babbitt, 1st
to use band wagon for advertising purposes.

Wilhelm Schneider patented the
carousel. . . .

Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume
1607-1896, Chicago, Marquis – Who’s Who (1963), page 653.

But in 1871,
the use of bandwagons as an advertising medium was not new.Bandwagons had been used in political and
circus advertising since at least the early 1840s, if not earlier.It is possible, I suppose, that Babbitt’s
commercial advertising, and any imitators, may have made bandwagons more
ubiquitous, thereby providing fertile ground for the idiom to take root.However, since the first known use of the
idiom, and nearly all of the early uses, occurred in the political arena,
Babbitt’s role in the creation or spread of the idiom may be minimal at
best.

Conclusion

The idiom, “jump on the
bandwagon” or “get into the bandwagon” has been in use since at least
1884.Senator Dwight M. Sabin of
Minnesota may have coined the expression; the first-known use of the idiom was
in his speech in support of James G. Blaine’s nomination for President at the
1884 Republican National Convention.Whether Sabin coined the expression, or not, the expression seems to
have been a regional idiom, confined primarily to the Upper Midwest, in and
near Sabin’s home state of Minnesota.Starting in about 1890, the idiom gained widespread and frequent use
throughout the United States.Although
early use of the idiom appears to have been in a positive context, the idiom has been used witn negative
connotations, more closely resembling the dominant, modern sense of the idiom, since as early as 1888.

If you are someone who is
susceptible to jumping on bandwagons, be careful.Remember, the original “band
wagon,” James G. Blaine’s 1884 nomination for President of the United States,
went down in flames.Blaine lost the
election by a vote of 219-182 in the Electoral College.

[iv]
Dave Wilton, WordOrigins.org
(citing Oxford English Dictinoary, band-wagon, 2nd Edition, 1989,
Oxford University Press).“When I once
became sure of one majority they rumbled over each other to get aboard the band
wagon.”

[v]
Although the reference to “giraffes” in the parade might otherwise suggest that
a circus bandwagon was used in the rally, a separate article on the same page
of the same paper refers to, “the picture of a giraffe in the whig
procession.”The Ohio Democrat (Canal Dover, Ohio), September 15, 1842, page 3,
column 3.

[vii]The Sun (New York), June 9, 1896. They
believe that Mr. Miller simply saw an opportunity to jump aboard the band
wagon, and that it was his desire to further his own interests more than McKinley’s
that led him to take the step he did..

[viii]Evening Star (Washington DC), January
18, 1894.Having thus captured the old
eastern allies of the Foraker Republicans – the Blaine men – by making Joe
Manley of Maine the chairman of the national committee, he leaves to the
Foraker men the unpleasant alternative of either getting into the band wagon
with the McKinley forces or staying out of the precession altogether.

[ix]Evening Bulletin (Honolulu), October 4,
1898. Join the Procession! And Get in the Band Wagon (in an advertisement for
readers to use the want ads).